Pyra's Hinge?


dgame

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Hi EvilDragon,

What is the status of Pyra's hinge? Any progress on a suitable solution?

Thanks!
 
It's the same as the Pandora hinge last I knew.
 
It's the same as the Pandora hinge last I knew.

I think the design is a little different. Is there a locking mechanism or something? I remember something being said about certain hinge types, 3ds, etc being patented.
Still I'm sure it the Pyra's entire design won't "Hinge" on the Hinge...:confused:
 
Well last I knew it still IS the Pandora Hinge:


Well, as mentioned, the case is nigh finished I just received the new case files yesterday.

Here are some pictures straight from FreeCAD for you :)


Closed unit, you can clearly see the shoulder buttons, all connectors as well as the SD Card Slots and the Stylus.

View attachment 26306View attachment 26307

Here's the keyboard part and the lid with the LCD.

View attachment 26308View attachment 26309

If you take a closer look at the LCD, you can see that there are two dummy screw slots - that's because part of the display is below that area.

That side will be clipped, whereas the other side will be screwed (same as the lower screw).

We'll have bumpers in there so you can't see that.

This way we can make the frame as small as possible, keep it sturdy with the screws and make sure we don't use too many clips.

Here's the inner part of the keyboard part:

View attachment 26310

Nothing too special, but the enclosement of the speakers is important for a good sound, can't wait to try them out :)

Next let's take a closer look on the shoulder buttons:

View attachment 26311View attachment 26312

The first picture shows them without the PCB. Really sturdy buttons should be really hard to break.

As you can see with the second picture, the plastic case will also stop the buttons before they can hurt the switches on the PCB.

That should make everything very robust as well.

Here's a last picture for you, showing where the SIM Card will be:

View attachment 26305

Some notes about the hinge:

The hinge part we'll use will be the same as in the Pandora, however, the hinge area will be changed a bit.

First, some background about my thoughts:

What's good with the current hinge design is that it snaps open and snaps close.


That's important and better than laptop friction hinges, which are stiff but don't really close well (unless you use some locking mechanism).

Our ideal hinge would be one which snaps open and close and has some friction added inbetween.

That's what we're trying to do here - using one simple trick.

The opposite side of the hinge (where the LCD Cable goes through) won't have a perfectly round hole and peg, but a slightly oval one.

That way, once you open it a bit, it has some friction - and when you're near 180°, the friction goes away again.

We need to try and tweak it a bit, but it should work out pretty well.

The problem with the hinge is not that I wouldn't want anything better.

The problem is that we can't do many experiments here.

Even the simple Pandora nubs did cost over 100,000 EUR in development and still the first 800 failed completely and we still had a 30% failure rate of the ones after.

If I did that, then there won't be a Pyra, as I don't have 100,000 EUR lying around somewhere...

If you have enough fundings and time, you can design your own parts - but doing that without having a REAL good knowledge in that area is suicide.

Especially when it comes to mechanical parts which need to be durable and mass produced.

There's a huge difference tweaking ONE of them manually for a prototype and having them reliably produced with mass production.

I tried with multiple companies specialized on fraction hinges to get a better hinge. They couldn't offer one with the size we need.

So the only thing we can do is use off-the-shelf ones - if you find one that fits, let me know and I'll gladly use it.

But until then, we can only use the one we have and make a small change to the plastic to add friction.
 
Bit of a bummer, imo. I love my pandora but the hinge makes the device feel very flimsy.
Honestly with the Pandora, the hinge is less of an issue, it's the plastic holding it. It should've been better reinforced and I think a better friction fit should work well to keep it from feeling flimsy.
 
Well last I knew it still IS the Pandora Hinge:
Super informative. The Pyra's underside is so very similar to the pandora. Even the dreaded battery compartment clips...but I remember ED saying that the clips and battery cover will be stronger this time. Gosh I'm ready for the Pyra.

Did you pre-order yet MR trashy or are you waiting for the next round of pre-orders?
 
Super informative. The Pyra's underside is so very similar to the pandora. Even the dreaded battery compartment clips...but I remember ED saying that the clips and battery cover will be stronger this time. Gosh I'm ready for the Pyra.

Did you pre-order yet MR trashy or are you waiting for the next round of pre-orders?

Number 4 on the pre-pre-order.
 
Honestly with the Pandora, the hinge is less of an issue, it's the plastic holding it. It should've been better reinforced and I think a better friction fit should work well to keep it from feeling flimsy.
If I can remember correctly, I think ED said that the dreaded wonky closed lid should not recur with the Pyra. That alone should make the device look quite a lot more professional, I reckon.
 
BUMP!

Hi EvilDragon,

What is the status of Pyra's hinge? Any progress on a suitable solution?

Thanks!
 
Well, how well does Pandora hinge work on the actual Pyra then? Did the plastic friction thing happen?
 
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